Precarious Privilege

Globalism, Digital Biopolitics, and Tech-Workers' Movements in India

Bibliographic Data

ID5128374
AuthorsRianka Roy (0000-0003-0553-1938, Department of English, Surendranath College for Women, Kolkata 700009, India, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume26
Issue7-8
Pages675-691
Publication date2021-11-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2021.1962641
OpenAlexW3192779141
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited13

This article focuses on Indian tech-workers’ views on labour and social movements in the context of precarity, digital globalism, and the neoliberal transformations of the culture and economy. Based on interviews of twenty information technology (IT) workers in India, conducted in 2018, I found that they inhabit the liminal spaces between precarity and privilege. I call it the precarity of liminality. This ambiguous status, combined with the assumption of white-collar prestige, prevents tech-workers from defending their labour rights. Indeed, even the trade unions formed exclusively for tech-workers are constrained by their members’ assumption of privilege. I hold that this is the case because the neoliberal market has transformed the local underpinnings of culture into a homogeneous simulacrum and codified performance, so that even the cultural diversity of these workers fails to resist their co-option into the global logic of labour and capital

Biopower · Globalism · Globalization · Liminality · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Precarity · Sociology · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Gender Studies · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Political Economy and Marxism

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